www.alcohol-drugs.co.uk – the blog

Aim To provide a clinician’s perspective on the problem of diversion of prescribed pharmaceuticals.Methods The paper provides a personal account of working in a treatment context where diversion from opioid substitution treatment (OST) became a political issue potentially compromising the continued delivery of OST. It summarizes evidence on the impact of diversion, and measures to contain it, from the United Kingdom 1986[ndash]2006, Australia 1996[ndash]2008 and the United States and France from the mid-1990s.Results Opioid diversion to the black market occurs in proportion to the amount of opioids prescribed to be taken without supervision, and in inverse proportion to the availability of heroin